Eve has been and is still reviled, though many, like me, bless her for bringing us down to earth. Without Eve’s daring action, the human race wouldn’t be here. It was this thought that compelled me to riff off the Old Testament’s negative depiction of Eve. The poems in Eve Everywhere are dedicated to her and Adam, our first planetary explorers.
All Day Eve Is With Me
In the dream I borrow the silk-rungs to climb clouds.
In the dream I borrow the snake to push beyond the idyllic.
In the dream I borrow God’s face and place it on Adam, then pluck an apple and name it
Tree of Life.
In the dream I borrow pleasure’s feathery fall to earth.
In the dream I borrow the first woman to come from outer space.
In the dream I borrow passion and layer it with past lives, then bow to Eve who was
borrowed.
EVE-ING
1
Like a lover I had
to leave is how
I think of the Lord.
2
The wind pierces
with such force it unties
the branches of my heart.
3
I brush off the dust.
What’s underneath is
life’s song.
HEY RIB 8
Rumor has it ‘round the cage you’re going to be an orphan. The Lord’s going to rip you from our birthplace and turn you into something called woman. I had a nightmare about this: God comes into His office and what does He have in His arms? You, Rib 8, wrapped in a pink blanket which He hands to some vapor and you walk out the door a second-hand human. That’s what a female is. God created Adam so he’s divine but there’s nothing holy about a woman wrought from a rib.
Don’t do it. Remember we’re brothers. Riot if you have to but you belong to us, your 24-rib family.
Your upstairs neighbor, Rib 7
DÉJÀ VU
In the South African black eagle
the Cain-Abel pattern repeats.
Once a year the mother hosts two eggs.
Out comes Cain and
about a week later, Abel appears.
As they grow, the first born
shoves Abel from
the family’s perch
and the newborn dies.
THE ORPHAN’S MOTHER
Eve slips into that other world
where she began.
In this parallel place,
Earth’s soul enfolds her:
I am your mother.
Though you had none
—a rib is cold comfort to come from.
I offer you this:
Learn to navigate the world from birds.
See history through an elephant’s eye.
Sit with the stone’s patience
and listen to tree-speak.
Discuss the origins of existence with an owl.
Catch the wind to send you beyond what you know.
And then, embrace me, daughter,
as raindrops fall.
CEO EVE
A suit pends between
Apple and The Eden Group.
CEO Eve is suing the tech giant
for using her bitten apple as a logo
without her permission,
a symbol that is now iconic.
The suit goes before the Supreme Court in June
and could yield the Eden Group ten billion dollars,
an amount the U.S. government spent in one week
fighting the war in Iraq.
GIRLFRIENDS
—for M.S.
What if Adam’s first wife were to Eve
like the girlfriend you had in high school
who had sex with her boyfriend
before you did?
What if she were so close to you,
she’d describe every luscious detail
where just a touch
could set fires?
What if, contrary to what you thought,
they couldn’t wait to do it again
because the more you practice
the better it gets?
And what if this same intimacy
Lilith and Eve shared
gave you the courage
to give the unknown a bite?
By Jean Colonomos